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Friday, November 5, 2010

I was a little perturbed after Thursday’s class. When the initial question was posed, “what is wealth” we immediately jumped to monetary gains and material wealth. Yet ‘wealth’ is an ambiguous word that encompasses more than just that. One can have a wealth of spirituality, of goodness of kindness and many more. Most importantly, they can be dirt poor while wealthy as can be.

I’m not trying to be the ‘kumbaya’ type by bringing to light these examples of happiness and good heartedness. Merely, I am pointing out that wealth is more than money. It’s a shame that in our world today, a person’s prosperity is measured monetarily. Whether we admit it or not, one of our first judgments upon meeting a new person is the way they dress, where they come from and how they act which invariably leads to their social status. Our world has progressed in such a way where it is difficult to judge a person’s wealth based off of their actions instead of capital. There are various ethnic tribes around the world who do not have much money. Instead, they measure a person’s wealth and status based off of how much they contribute to the community through other means, through charity and kindness. One who does this is attributed to being “rich” in spirit and is regarded well.

I wish, for our sakes, that we could be a bit more like these tribes. If we become less materialistic and money-based, I think we would be able to appreciate what we have more and understand the hardships of those who aren’t as ‘wealthy.’